3x01 Backwards - Red Dwarf (UK) Episode Guide

Red Dwarf (UK)

- Episode 03x01

Episode: 03x01
Title: Backwards
Type: Regular Episode
Production Code: 3x3
First Aired: Nov. 14, 1989

Season 3 » Episode #01 - Backwards

Summary: Rimmer and Kryten are trapped on a Earth where everything is Backwards.

Who appeared in this episode?

Guest Stars:

Waitress	played by Maria Friedman
Compere	played by Tony Hawks
Customer in Cafe	played by Anna Palmer
Pub Manager	played by Arthur Smith (VI)
Pub extra	played by Peter Mitchell (III)
Bar patron	played by David Lovgren
Cigarette-Smoking Man	played by Rob Grant
Taxi Driver	played by Paul Flanagan
Truck Driver	played by Paul Flanagan

	Season 3 / Episode 1: - Backwards Kryten: I think there's something wrong with the gearbox. The thing is, I learned how to fly in Starbug 2. I'm not used to the controls on Starbug 1. Rimmer: They're exactly the same. Kryten: Yes. That's the problem.
	Season 3 / Episode 1: - Backwards Lister: This is crazy. Why are we talking about going to bed with Wilma Flintstone? The Cat: You're right. We're nuts. This is an insane conversation. Lister: She'll never leave Fred and we know it.

[More Quotes]

MISTAKES/GOOFS

PLOT: The crew go to a universe where time is running backwards. Inevitably, this means that there are many errors made with regard to the correct order of certain events, many of which are integral to the plot.
CONT: In some scenes (usually outdoor ones), words appear with the letters themselves in mirror image, while in others (usually on signs or newspapers), while the words are spelled backwards, the letters themselves appear normally.

TRIVIA

The name of the bank robber Michael Ellis was also the name of the title character in "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (1969) {Michael Ellis (#4.2)}.
'Craig Charles' almost drowned during the filming of a scene where he walks out of a lake in "Backwards". He had weights in his pockets to keep him from floating upwards but got his foot caught in mud while underwater. No one realized until the camera's started rolling and he failed to emerge. A quick rescue operation was mounted and he was fine.
The scroll at the beginning of this episode explains all the changes from the second series, but goes by too fast to read. It says: "RED DWARF III THE SAGA CONTINUUMS The Story So Far... Three million years in the future, Dave Lister, the last human being alive, discovers he is pregnant after a liaison with his female self in a parallel universe. His pregnancy concludes with the successful delivery of twin boys, Jim and Baxley. However, because they were conceived in another universe, with different physical laws, they suffer from highly accelerated growth rates, and are both eighteen years old within three days of being born. In order to save their lives, Lister returns them to the universe of their origin, where they are reunited with their father (a woman), and are able to lead comparatively normal lives. Well, as normal as you can be if you've been born in a parallel universe and your father's a woman and your mother's a man and you're eighteen years three days after your birth. Shortly afterwards, Kryten, the service mechanoid who had left the ship after being rescued from his crashed vessel, the Nova 5, is found in pieces after his space bike crash lands onto an asteroid. Lister rebuilds the 'noid, but is unable to recapture his former personality. Meanwhile, Holly, the increasingly erratic Red Dwarf computer, performs a head sex change operation on himself. He bases his new face on Hilly, a female computer with whom he'd once fallen madly in love. And now the saga continuums."
The episode "Backwards" sees the Red Dwarf crew visit a version of Earth where time runs in the opposite direction. As a result - all the guest cast have their lines reversed. One sequence involves the owner of a pub allegedly chastising Kryten for starting a fight. In fact he actually says: "You are a stupidly square-headed bald git, aren't you eh?" He then turns to Rimmer and says: "You, I'm pointing at you, but I'm not actually addressing you. I'm addressing the one prat in the entire country who's actually bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it around and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying. What a poor sad life he's got!"